the Pumping Station

This has been a year of loss for my family that began with the loss of my Meme. She died last spring, although we really lost her years before when she lost touch with reality and started living in her own mind.

Meme was my touchstone person. She always loved me. I was the first grandchild and the only grandchild for 5 years until my brother was born. For a woman who loved children I supect I was the best thing since sliced bread. She could love me and enjoy me but she wasnt responsible for me! I remember the smells of meme's house from my childhood...the wood stove, baking apple pies, and simmering meat fat from roasts. I never remember a day I spent with her where she didnt make me believe I was the most important person in her universe. She loved me, but she liked me...she always liked me. (or if she didnt, she never let on...which was fine with me)

My very very favorite childhood memories involve my Meme and the old pumping station. Most days we would take a bag of day old bread and my meme would take my hand and we would walk, swinging our arms between us...talking about sunshine and singing songs...so many songs...with meme it was always about singing. I think she is the reason i love music and singing so much. We would get into the woods and look for lady's slippers. I think they were my meme's favorite....we hunted for them...as rare as they are...all the time. While we walked we would pick up flat stones and round stones and and end up with a pocket of stones. We would reach water's edge......and try to skip stones, and throw them......looking at the different ripples in the water and laughing and singing. Then...would come the ducks...and we would feed them the leftover bread. I was convinced those ducks were my best friends. Ah the innocence of youth!

How life has changed. We dont take delight in such small outings anymore. Talking and walking and singing and laughing and throwing stones and feeding ducks would not rate as a 'thing to do', yet for me...those walks to the Pumping Station were what I looked forward to every day. They are what I miss. Those moments of being connected with my Meme, really spending time with her, enjoying her company and her enjoying mine. Fresh air, wonderful company, and the beauty of nature were all we needed to spend a perfect day.

Meme moved away from the pumping station, but her next house was right on the cove at lake pearl. Swimming and fishing and crawfishing, and frogging. Out in the boat, reading on the porch. Different smells...the smell of the shore at a fresh water lake mingling with the scent of pies and cakes and roasts. Family and the gathering of aunts and their husbands and children in that little house on the lake every sunday after church. Sneaking in to grab the crispy highly salted fat pieces from the roast before it was carved. Hors D'euvres......pinapple cream cheese spread and crackers, shrimp scampi, oysters rockefeller, always such deliciousness at Meme's house. Food equated love. Food was how meme showed us all that she loved us. And we ate and ate and ate to show her how much we appreciated her gift!

I remember going up to meme's room after dinner....smelling the tabu and chantilly....using her avon samples to put on make up...pretending I was her. She always made me feel so safe and loved and happy - everything about her made me feel that way. From her I got my love of music, my love of books, my love of soap operas! She always told me that I had to marry a chinaman and perform on Broadway. Well....I married Rich and he SO isnt a Chinaman, and I have performed on Broadway in Columbus Georgia, but I am certain it was not the Broadway she meant. She wouldnt have been disappointed though. She was always proud of my accomplishments big and small. When I had struggles with Mom, meme would wrap me in her arms and listen and hug me and give me advice how to make it better. She was my only childhood confidante.

Zoos...I will always love the zoo because of Meme. Another frequent outing to see Fanny the elephant at Slater Park. Feeding ole Fanny apple pieces and peanuts and carrots. I was convinced that Fanny thought I was her friend too. So many of my life's pleasures have their foundation in experiences I shared with my meme.

Moving to Georgia....frayed that connection we had that was so strong. I didnt know how to maintain it...nor did she. I stink at letters and phone calls....but my wonderful husband did spend several years making meme smile by being her 'sp' or 'secret pal' and sending her cards and notes on a monthly basis.

I miss her......I miss knowing there is a person in the world who will think I am amazing and marvelous no matter what I do. I miss being with the person who really formed all of the interests and joys and fun memories of my life. I miss her hugs and the smell of tabu...i miss her apple pies. I miss adventures into her Trunk of memories where she would pull out photos and clippings and tell all of the stories behind each one. I miss that...but I have my own trunk of memories and I will take my grandchildren on the same kind of adventure into my life and past when they visit. I will be for my grandchildren what my Meme was for me - a touchstone, a hero, a source of unconditional love.

Parents

They say.....you never really appreciate anything until it is gone.

How sadly true.

I have the best parents. I could not have asked for parents to have loved me more, or supported me more, or celebrated my accomplishments more, or loved my children more, or provided for me better, or demanded more of me. They were the best parents.

Our family came with its own particular brand of dysfunction. You show me a family that isnt dysfunctional in one way or another and I will show you a family of performers and liars. We didnt always like each other. Sometimes not much...sometimes not at all. We ALWAYS loved each other.

My mother and father's marriage and their relationship has been a shining example. A guidebook of how to stay married and stay in love. They faught, but they loved. They REALLY loved.

As professionals my parents were the best teachers in the school. More kids liked them than liked me. I spent a bit of junior high jealous because I was convinced that the kids liked my Mom better than they liked me. I mean....pfffft...I didnt do splits on the chalk tray, what did I have going for me? I tried...they all wanted my help on the physical science lab reports. They thought, because I was an A student in that class, that Mom helped me with them. I finally gave in, let them copy my lab report...unfortunately...I got a D on that one. Mom never helped me. In fact, I dont think she mentioned the word 'science' in the house for the whole year she was my teacher. Other kids got help from their parents but my Mother...so full of integrity...was not going to compromise her integrity to cross the line from teacher to mother. If she was my science teacher, she was not going to be my mom the science helper. Jealousy is a useless feeling, but I was right they did like her better. She was so full of life...full of energy....full of passion for science...passion for kids...passion for teaching. Everything I am as a teacher I owe to watching her. I definitely dont teach science, but I am full of life, and I share her pasion for kids and teaching and only hope I can keep up with the energy! When I get sad, missing her...it just makes me thrust out my chin and be even more determined that I will be her legacy. That some of the best parts of her live on in me. That she is still touching lives through me. That gives me peace.

My Dad.....also just one of those people that inspires. Not like mom....completely different. It is his eyes. They are windows to his soul. You look into Dad's eyes and you can read him....and Whoa to the person who looks in those eyes and sees disappointment. It is like a gut wrenching blow. My students say my eyes do that. That I have...what they call...'the look'. They say that the idea of getting 'the look' can bring them to tears. I wouldnt have any idea what they meant if I hadnt gotten that same 'look' from Dad more times than I can mention. Strangers would talk to Mom, but Dad is like a dear old friend. You dont chatter with him, but when your heart is heavy or you need advice or counsel he is the most peaceful calm, guiding force there is in the universe. Even before he was 'talking for God' he was this way. It is just part of his character. And Intelligent....my fondest memories of childhood were walks in the woods and mountains identifying the different plants, and the types of rocks. I was always looking for information from my Daddy and soaking it up like a sponge.

I was a difficult child. I just am not sure I could have handled one like me. Bless both my parents for surviving it. Precocious and Determined, Independent.... Stubborn. I was reading my baby book last week....and I couldnt even count the number of times Mom's initial reporting was so excited about me being independent about this or that...but later she came back and crossed out independent and wrote STUBBORN and OPINIONATED. I had to be leashed to my bed because i wouldnt stay in it. That should have been a clue right there. I dont imagine many kids need to be leashed and harnessed into their bed at night to keep them..not only in bed, but out of the brook outside, or the neighbors house. They figured out early that they had to keep my mind engaged...and they did. Song after song, book after book...memorization games and mneumonics and all sorts of mental puzzle activities to keep my mind focused on something positive. Then I discovered theatre. I imagine I became like a foreign species living in their house at this point. I sang musicals morning noon and night, I danced in flashdance ripped sweatshirts and lord knows what all else that I know now in retrospect must have looked utterly ridiculous and embarassed them to no end...but at the time I just thought I was being magnificently bohemian. I know that I was a cross for them to bear. They loved me though, and just kept pushing and prodding. Never steering me away from my passions. Both of them told me over and over and over that all they wanted is for me to be happy. For a long time..I didnt believe that. I thought they wanted me to be a happy conformist and I was not subscribing in any way shape or form. They didnt want me to conform, they just didnt ...well...they didnt...hmmm...I was going to say they didnt understand how I thought...but..well...I dont think anybody does! They kept encouraging me to be the best I could be and to strive for happiness.

Even when I married so young. Lord...I will never forget Rich and I making our 'big announcemen t' that we were going to live together and Mom asking questions and us trying to convince her that we were fully committed to one another, we just didnt want to be conventional. She looked at both of us and said "You arent committed unless you commit. If you dont get married you are just telling one another that you arent worth committing to" I suspect....she thought we would reconsider living together. Instead..we left the room and I said to Rich...."lets get married then, in August"....he said "ok" and we went back into the room to tell mom. Her mouth dropped to the floor and she had nothing else to say. She also didnt help much with the planning of the wedding. I think I flummoxed her again. I think she thought I was making the biggest mistake of my life. I think she worried that I was going down the hard road she had travelled by marrying young. Well..it was the hard road, but it was the perfect road for me. I think she admired my Rich a lot...she knew EXACTLY what he had to live with by living with and loving and staying with a nut like me. Regardless of her opinion, she and Dad paid for whatever i wanted in a wedding...they didnt argue or try to talk me out of it. I think they may have prayed a lot that I would change my mind, but they discovered that I was with my life partner. The right one. The man who would love me and who I could love the way they had always loved one another.

I miss my Mother. I miss her so much. Little things arent the same......sharing my good news, sharing the worries, just talking to her about my girls...she always knew what to say to help me have perspective and not 'lose it' with them. When I bought the smallest jeans I have fit into in 25 years my first thought was " i need to call mom!" ...then the sadness when I realized that I wouldnt ever again have her to share my joys and sorrows. I miss our weekly calls..sometimes long..sometimes short...but always the touch stone moment of my life where I felt like I was talking to someone who had no expectations of me but to just BE ME. I know if I miss her this much...my poor Dad must feel it so acutely that I dont know how he breathes. I dont know how to talk to him about it. I dont know how to bring her up or to fill the gap for him. I dont have her easy way about me. I am more like him. Both of us needing more to be needed than to open up and tell somebody we need them. Both of us going silent in our sadness rather than talking it out. I wish I could talk to my Dad the way I talked to Mom. I love him so much and I want so much to just make him smile a bit. Dana will be better for him. Busy Dana will keep him occupied and adventuring and laughing. Dana is, in so many ways, like my Mom.

ok...now I have cried enough and it is time to head to the beach!

Love

When I married Rich 24 years ago I loved him. He made my heart race, and being with him was exciting and made my whole world sparkle.

Then came that phase where you lose that 'in love' feeling and the relationship becomes work. All of those idiosyncrisies you dont notice when you are 'in love' suddenly seem magnified and you look at the person you couldnt live without and you want to change all of those things about them that suddenly drive you nuts. Ok...this person isnt going to change for me, either 1 they dont really love me, or 2 I dont really love them if this is how they REALLY are. Why did they change after we got married? This phase...I call 'the struggle' and it is so easy to quit during this phase. I think it is why the divorce rate is so high.

Next came the acceptance phase where you realize....well...it is the same person and they havent changed at all....it is just that the rose colored glasses of that aphrodesiac of being 'in love' wore off and you saw them.....as they truly are... for the first time. You realize you cant change them, so you take a deep breath and accept their faults and love them for who they REALLY are, despite them. If you have children, this is also the phase where you look at each other wide eyed and wonder if you will ever have a moment to just love and enjoy one another ever again. It feels like all of the feelings and energy go to the kids and there is little left for each other. I remember saying to myself "if we can only survive until they get old enough not to need a babysitter we will be ok."

The next phase I call 'Dating". The kids are now old enough to stay alone and we could go out and do things just us. We had 'date night'. I remember Bekah asking "how come the two of you get to go out and do something together every wednesday without us?" and my reply "Bekah, one day you and Laura will grow up and move out and have lives of your own and it would be really nice if your Dad and I still had a relationship with each other. He is my future Bek, he is my forever and I am going to make time to make sure we still have a relationship to share in our forever. So, we are going to have date night" And we did...every wednesday. Sometimes it was just a walk on the riverwalk where we held hands and talked about something, anything but the kids. Sometimes a movie. In fact, we saw lots of movies during this time in our marriage. Sometimes we parked the truck under the stars and laid in the bed and just took in the magnificence of the universe. It didnt matter what we did, it mattered that we learned to talk ...not just about the kids...but to each other. I was determined that we werent going to grow old and be one of those couples who stared at each other with nothing to say.

I call the next phase 'Accomplishment'. Work takes priority and work takes time. I know Rich particularly was patient (is still patient) during my accomplishment period. We accomplished the parenting thing....the girls graduating from high school and one from college. We could look at each other and say "we did it, we raised them and look...they are independent and lovely, and good people. We did good" My work, particularly last year, was all about accomplishment and seeing such unexpected rewards for my work. Seeing the difference I made in the lives of young people. Accomplishment is a good phase, particularly when you have a spouse like mine who is always encouraging and supportive and so very very proud of everything I do. His pride means more to me than I ever will be able to say. That he cares enough about me to celebrate my accomplishments with me, to really enjoy the good feeling of having accomplished them with me by being my support system. That means a lot. He has always been my rock. I have always been prone to living inside of my imagination. In fact, since being a little girl my imagination has always been my favorite destination. I am not good with life's practicalities. Thats one of the things I learned vividly during the 'struggle' phase. Rich is not prone to imaginative bents, but...he is so practical and logical and solid that if i let him guide me in all of the areas requiring practical, logical, sound reasoned decisions, then I would be free to spend more time in my imaginative pursuits without being so stressed about the details of life. In the struggle phase I wanted him to get an imagination and just loosen up and have fun. I discovered in the acceptance phase that if i let him take charge of all of the basics in our life, he actually feels comfortable enough to play and have fun. So...he is in charge. I love him being in charge. It has bonded us because it required a rather strong level of trust. I dont ask about the bills being paid, etc...i just ask if I can spend money. I trust that he is handling the bills and that he will allow me a purchase if there is money enough for me to spend on one. He loves being trusted and taking care of me. It fills a need of his. So.....we have found the perfect arrangement - one that brings us closer. I found myself looking at him with new eyes yet again when my mother died. I cried - a lot. Still cry a lot sometimes. He never tried to get me to stop crying like most people do when the person they love is sad. He never gave me a bunch of platitudes about how it would be better soon. He just loved me. He would wrap his arms around me, rub my back, stroke my hair...and whisper in my ear "just cry love, just cry...cry as much and as long as you need and I will stay right here and hold you". And he did....and out of grief so deep I just felt hurt all the time...I found love. My Rich really loves me...and I really love him.


Another level of this journey of 24 years. The Languages of Love. During our trip this summer we listened to my kindle and the car stereo read the book 'The 5 languages of Love'. It was the most enlightening relationship book I have ever read. I suggest it to anyone. It doesnt point fingers about what you should or shouldnt do in your relationships. It helps identify something rather basic - the love language each of us speaks. How...we can love someone and try to show them every day, but if you arent speaking their love language they wont know that you are trying to love them. Rich and I do not speak the same love language. I require quality time and quality communication in order to feel loved. His love language is service. He feels loved if i am doing things for him , or around the house that he wants done. It was eye-opening. We had, through hit or miss desperation in trying to have a good relationship, tried to show one another love in so many different ways that we occassionally hit on the other's language, but it is much better even just a few weeks after reading the book. It takes no guess work, and no wasted frustrated energy in trying to show the other ...now we speak one another's language and with less effort and more results we show one another love every day.

Another phase in our relationship of 25 years.

I dont know what the future holds for us..but I know that my future is with Rich. He is my past, my present and my future. He is the best part of my life. He isnt perfect, neither am I....but we are perfect FOR each other.

I love you Rich, so very much. Thank you for showing me every day.....

Blogging..

I always thought blogging was stupid and said I would never put my life and thoughts out there on the internet for just anybody and everybody to read. Blogging my trip changed my mind. It was comforting to reflect about my day. It gave perspective and appreciation for all of the good things in my life. I know that everyday of life wont be quite that positive as a few weeks on vacation, but the value of reflection and the gaining of perspective and appreciation are things I need more of.

So...my first blog is about friendship.
Friends come and friends go....that doesnt mean the friendship goes away, but life gets so busy that it is hard to find time to spend with friends. I have so many friends and they mean so much to me, but I am not the best friend...time is not something I have lots of...and I am sure my friends feel like I dont care about them the way I should.

That said...i spent last weekend with two ladies who i consider wonderful friends. Both of them came into my life as parent volunteers in my drama program. They were just being the best kind of mamas to their kids and becoming involved. Both of them went above and beyond and as we spent time together working with productions we became friendly, and overtime both of them became people I was just super comfortable with. I never had to be 'the teacher'. I was open with my failings with both of these women and told them I needed help..and both of them stepped in to fill the gaps. What I lack in organization, Cindy has and she has brought organization to the entire parent communication machine of my drama program both at school and the community theatre. What I lack in time, Stacey has offered. She has sat at rehearsal after rehearsal to be a second set of eyes...so that I could focus my attention on directing the play and she would focus her attention on watching the kids who werent on stage. She has taken pictures, cleaned my classroom - lots of times.... copied papers and painted props, sets, whatever i needed. Stacey has given me the gift of her time.

This past weekend I felt like I could spend time with them without asking for something from them. We had such fun together. It was relaxed, easy...lots of laughs, lots of tears, lots of just plain fun. There was never an awkward moment. We enjoyed lots of good meals, one I cooked and then The Melting Pot and PF Changs, we went out and listened to live music and laughed and laughed and laughed as the dueling piano players turned commedien from time to time. We spent hours baking and reading and listening to music on the beach, we poked at shops, we went to the movies (cried at the movies), I napped hehehehe...I love my summertime naps, and we all three got tattoos.

I feel so blessed to have had their help for so many years and now...I feel even more blessed to consider them my friends. Life is indeed good!